


but, ultimately

by ladyzanra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, M/M, Sad, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyzanra/pseuds/ladyzanra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all so sudden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but, ultimately

“You'll never get away with this,” Cas says, and just like that, the truth becomes devastatingly obvious, grows as tangible and real as the blood on Metatron's knife; Dean's blood.

Metatron already has.

It's all so sudden.

Cas's chest is tight with the shock. His grace is like a thin threadbare cloud shrouding him now, a very worn out coat, and it hardly buffers anything. Certainly not the way the space just below his ribs clenches with disbelief and regret, the way the ache wedges upward, a cold sort of burning, trying to split him open.

He's always had enough time, before. It began with saving Dean and he has saved Dean ever since, saved him from angels, from demons, from the Leviathan. Dean has always come back, always pulled through. Cas hadn't realized this situation was more dire than the others. Or perhaps he had not allowed himself to consider the thought. He had simply chosen a plan of action and thrown himself into it, undistracted, single minded. The way he always does.

This doesn't make sense.

He is bound to the chair by Metatron's handcuffs but really he is bound by something else, something deeper. He is his own chains, the nails pinning himself in place. Caught not only in front of Metatron but also in front of all the angels listening in. A phyrric victory that does not feel like victory at all, a war won where it is painfully clear Cas would rather have won the battle.

His weakness exposed, and in that, a kind of death. He has reached the place where he really, truly ends. Is imprisoned in his own skin.

Cas is so full of bitter fury that he imagines smiting Metatron himself. He can't do that anymore. He imagines a thousand different methods of torture. He won't do that either; anything he does will not be enough.

He feels it now, at the fringes of his grace, slowly sinking into the essence of him beneath: this absence where Dean's presence should be, this fading rhythm, the change in the color of the light weaving him, the way it begins to stream cold. Alone.

So it's true.

Maybe, he thinks, with a sudden rush of hope, Dean will soon end up in Heaven. Maybe the mark will not be enough to pull him down into the pit. Maybe, when Castiel goes to visit the Winchester brothers' heaven, Dean will already be there, sitting with his feet up, beer in hand, jokey smile on his face like hey, bet you're surprised to see me. I'll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.

Cas has no wings to teleport him to Dean's heaven. He'll walk there, he thinks, no matter how long it takes. He derives some comfort from his own determination. When he sees Dean again, he won't hesitate any longer. He won't keep it to himself. He'll tell him flat out. Tell him everything. Everything he was too late to tell him this time. Everything he wants to tell him so badly right now.

Or maybe.

If he goes back to earth, drives back to the bunker, he'll find Dean and Sam are there and have been okay all along. This could, after all, just be another one of Metatron's elaborate virtual realities. Cas knows it isn't. But maybe if he just goes back, they'll be there waiting for him, Sam _and_ Dean both, gearing up for the next hunt, wondering why he hasn't been answering their texts. As if nothing has happened.

Yes, he thinks. That sounds far more like the Winchesters he knows.

Maybe that.


End file.
